This Low-Sugar and Whole Wheat Garden Harvest Cake with Zucchini, Apple, and Carrot would be nice for a special occasion, and this tasty low-sugar and low-glycemic cake is loaded with healthy vegetables, fruits, and nuts. Use the Recipes-by-Diet-Type Index to find more recipes like this.

Introducing Thursday Treats! Recently I got two e-mails within a couple of days asking me if I had any recipes for healthier desserts. I do have a good collection of those kinds of things back in the archives, so I asked people on the Kalyn's Kitchen Facebook page what they thought about having a once-a-week feature called Thursday Treats to spotlight healthier desserts and other more indulgent dishes. The response was overwhelmingly in favor of the idea, so every Thursday I'm going to share recipes for things that are more of a treat than my usual low-carb offerings.

Treats featured on Thursday won't always be sweets, but they'll be the kind of recipes that would be an occasional treat if you're following a carb-conscious eating plan. I realize not everyone might want that kind of recipe, but if you're a strictly low-carb eater, there will always be Low-Carb Recipe Love on Fridays coming up the next day, and when I can find them I'll offer low-carb alternates to the Thursday Treat featured that day in the links immediately following the recipe, so just scroll down and check those out if you don't want to indulge in a higher-carb treat!

For the first Thursday Treat, it seemed perfect to mark the arrival of Fall with Low-Sugar and Whole Wheat Garden Harvest Cake with Zucchini, Apple, and Carrot, which is a delicious loaf cake and a great way to celebrate the bounty of the season. I heard about this recipe years ago from Twitter, and when my friend Addie sent out a link saying it was the most searched for recipe in the Austin American Statesman recipe database, I had to take a look.

When I saw the recipe Addie tweeted for a cake with zucchini, carrots, and apple, I thought it would be fun to make a low-sugar and whole wheat version. (Now I can no longer find the original recipe online, so I'm even more glad I came up with a low-sugar version.)

I didn't have the right size pan back in 2009 when I posted this recipe, so mine turned out a bit flat, but otherwise I loved this Garden Harvest Cake, especially the way you see colorful flecks of carrot in the finished cake. Some people might consider this more of a bread than a cake, but this was delicious, no matter what you call it!

Preheat oven to 350F/175C and spray a 8 X 4 inch loaf pan with non-stick spray or oil (Or you can use a 9 x 5 inch pan and have a flatter cake like I did!) In a large mixing bowl, add white whole wheat flour, sweetener, cinnamon, baking soda, and salt. Mix together with large spoon until well-combined.

Add grated apple, grated carrot, grated zucchini, and chopped pecans to the bowl with the flour mixture. Use the spoon to toss ingredients together until all ingredients are well coated with flour.

In a smaller bowl, add canola oil, buttermilk, and eggs, and beat with a whisk for about 30 seconds, until well combined. Pour egg mixture into the other bowl with the flour mixture and stir until just combined. (Mixture will be fairly stiff.)

Pour cake into oiled loaf pan. Bake at 350F/175C for about 50 minutes, or until a toothpick inserted into the center of the cake comes out completely clean. (For me, that was exactly 50 minutes.)

Cool cake in the pan placed on a wire rack for 10 minutes. Then carefully remove cake from pan (I used a knife to go around the edge) and cool cake completely on rack before slicing. This lasted several days in the refrigerator, but only because I was very diligently using portion control!

This cake is probably too high in carbs for a traditional low-carb eating plan, but made with white whole wheat flour and Splenda, this cake would be approved for phase 2 or 3 of the South Beach Diet and would probably work for other low-glycemic eating plans.

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I really enjoy seeing the different breads you've made. I've been feasting on zucchini bread for weeks, but the addition of apple and carrot would taste extra special. I also go for a combination of regular flour and whole wheat, but I guess you can really up the fiber with the white whole wheat.

Holy cow - look at all of those fruits and veggies! Along with the whole-wheat flour, you could get a day's worth of fiber in one delicious slice. This looks so moist. Buttermilk is always such a great secret weapon for moistness.

I don't have any experience using Stevia for cooking; if any else does, please let us know how it worked for you.

I used a stand-up cheese grater to grate the apple and carrot and a food processor to grate the zucchini. I had one of those huge zucchinis, but if I'd been grating a smaller one I might have just grated it with the cheese grater too.

I forgot to say that the original recipe called for walnuts, but when a recipe says walnuts, my mind automatically converts it to pecans!

Deanna, I agree, it's more like a bread to me too.

Julie, good to know it still turned out even with more liquid. I usually squeeze some of the water out of the zucchini, but this time my zucchini wasn't too wet.

Joyce, I'm looking in South Beach Diet Supercharged (the latest book) and it says Fat Free or 1% buttermilk, up to 2 cups a day even for phase one. The buttermilk I buy has 2.5 grams of fat per cup, so I'm sure the small amount in this cake is fine. Good question though, I've never found buttermilk here labeled "fat free" or 1% but since the fat content is so low I've used it without worrying.

I realized I missed the buttermilk part after I started the recipe. A quick google search suggested I could substitute milk w/ a bit of lemon juice or vinegar for buttermilk. I used the 1/4 cup of 2% milk with 1 tsp of lemon juice and it worked out fine. The bread got thumbs up at my house.

Just made this pretty and moist cake/bread. I substituted the sugar with Agave Nectar and used walnuts as my nut. The batter was nice and thick.Oh ya, I also tossed in a bit of flax seed meal. i will grind, drain, and freeze some of the last of the zuccinis for this recipe and give as gifts. Healthy food at xmas for those you really love!I really like your site. Thanks

Katherine I don't know for sure how it will turn out with regular whole wheat flour, but I'm guessing not as good because white whole wheat cooks more like white flour. Maybe the cake will just be a bit denser though and you won't mind it, give it a try.

Just tasted it, it's delicious! The only problem is you can't get bored of it, the texture and the taste are extremely intriguing. I think next time I will try maple syrup or molasses instead of sugar. I bet a slice of this cake with some extremely creamy plain yoghurt would be a heavenly match. Thank you :)

Wonderful basic recipe - easy, yummy and healthy! I used my breadmaker and a combination of whole grain flours, a pear instead of an apple, raw sunflower seeds for the nuts and a bit of molasses with the splenda. Will get apples and walnuts at the store and try that combo. As another commenter mentioned, it is delicious with my homemade plain greek yogurt!

I made this today exactly according to recipe but I ended up making them into smaller sized muffins. Baked at 350*, these were done at 22 minutes because the batter seemed to be a bit wetter than I expected. My muffins look really different. Flavor is fine, they taste great. But they look as if they have been soaking in syrup. Very "holey". Do you know why this happened?

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